Last week I argued that the Trump-brokered deal with Carrier industries to keep 700 jobs in Indiana shouldn’t be treated as a triumph, but instead as a sellout of those unlucky workers who hadn’t managed to make themselves useful as PR props for Trump.

A policy effort to boost public investment should include both “core” infrastructure investments such as building roads and "noncore" public investments, such as improving early child care. Both provide high rates of return. Public finance is the most accountable way of financing infrastructure. Tax credits dangled to entice private financiers and developers provide no compelling efficiency gains and open up possibilities for corruption and crony capitalism.

If our arguments have not yet persuaded policymakers on the dangers of wholly outsourcing infrastructure investment to private developers, perhaps they will be convinced by the result of a public-private partnership (P3) in North Carolina—an exercise in privatization that may have helped swing that state’s gubernatorial race.

There is no significant evidence that job losses in the post-2007 period were driven by minimum wage increases. Rather, industrial and geographic exposure to the Great Recession account for the employment differences between states with and without significant minimum wage increases.

Summary
The Yankee Institute for Public Policy has published a report claiming that compensation for public-sector workers in Connecticut is 25 percent to 46 percent higher than for comparable workers in the private sector.

What Mr. Carson’s view ignores is that the racial segregation of every metropolitan area in the nation is also the result of “social engineering”—the purposeful efforts of federal, state, and local governments to create and enforce the residential separation of the races. What the Obama administration has begun are plans to undo this social engineering. Failing to continue these plans doesn’t avoid social engineering—it perpetuates it.

Judge Amos Mazzant, the judge who blocked enforcement of the Department of Labor’s new overtime rule, said many things that aren’t true in his opinion, including misstatements of historical fact such as when a minimum salary for exemption was first included in the regulations (it was right from the beginning, in 1938, not two years later).

Growth of charter schools has increased inequality in education
In a new EPI report, Rutgers University professor Bruce Baker finds that charter school expansion has exacerbated inequities in education. In his study of 11 city school systems, Baker finds, in most cases, the non-charter public schools have received fewer resources due to charter school expansion. Also, he finds that many leading charter operators have been charged with conflicts-of-interest and financial malfeasance. Baker recommends communities hold charter operators publicly accountable and consider the cost and benefits to the community and to the greater public good.

The decision of a judge in Texas to block the Department of Labor’s new regulations guaranteeing overtime pay to millions of workers is more than just bad law. It is also a financial blow to people who had every reason to expect that their lives were about to be made a little easier.

Judge Amos Mazzant’s opinion to block the Department of Labor’s new overtime rule is poorly reasoned and factually inaccurate. Judge Mazzant does not know the history of the Fair Labor Standards Act and he appears not to understand Chevron deference, a rule constructed by the U.S. Supreme Court to guide judicial review of federal agency regulatory decisions.

Anger over the impact of international trade on jobs, wages, and opportunities was a major cause of Donald Trump’s election. As the Democratic Party’s politicians and pundits search through the rubble of Hillary Clinton’s candidacy for clues to her stunning loss, they need to take an honest look at their own contribution.

Some communities look at claims of miraculous proficiency rates or heed reports of long waiting lists for charter schools and conclude that chartering is the way to go. But if the broad, long-term policy objective is to move toward the provision of a “system of great schools” that produces an equitable distribution of excellent (or at the very least adequate) educational opportunities for all children, chartering must pass a much more thoughtful examination.
Other reports have shown how high test scores and popularity of charter schools could be the byproducts of using data from cherry-picked charter schools that serve cherry-picked or culled populations. This report adds further insights for the debate on how expanding charter schools as a policy alternative achieves the broader goal. Specifically, it shows that charter expansion may increase inequity, introduce inefficiencies and redundancies, compromise financial stability, and introduce other objectionable distortions to the system that impede delivery of an equitable distribution of excellent or at least adequate education to all children. By shedding light on the risks of charter expansion, it provides elements for a decision-making process that weighs the costs against expected benefits. The report concludes with a checklist of items decision-makers must consider when evaluating charter expansion in their communities.

The following is an overview of racial unemployment rates and racial unemployment rate gaps by state for the third quarter of 2016. We provide this analysis on a quarterly basis in order to generate a sample size large enough to create reliable estimates of unemployment rates by race at the state level.

Today, working people across the country, from fast food workers to adjunct professors, are striking and demonstrating in favor of a $15 minimum wage—the largest demonstration in the history of the Fight for $15 movement, which has invigorated the debate over raising the minimum wage and helped make a $15 minimum wage and a union the standard for people who care about an economy that works for everyone.

Judge stops millions of workers from getting a raise
Responding to requests from business interests, a United States District Court in Texas issued an injunction putting the Obama administration’s updates to the overtime pay rule on hold, dashing the hopes of millions of workers who were poised to get paid for overtime work. EPI’s Ross Eisenbrey released a statement on the ruling, calling it “a blow to those Americans who care deeply about raising wages and lessening inequality.”

This evening, a United States District Court in Texas issued an injunction against the Obama administration’s changes to the overtime rule, arguing the Labor Department does not have the authority it has exercised since 1938, under 10 presidents, including FDR and George W.

President-elect Donald Trump has indicated that one of his first priorities will be a plan to boost infrastructure investment. Normally, this would be welcome news for those of us who have been arguing for years that increased public investment should be a top-tier economic priority. The still-sketchy details of Trump’s plan, however, are a cause for concern.

Lowering taxes on the rich is the wrong way to go
In a new report, EPI’s Josh Bivens and Hunter Blair identify three key fiscal challenges facing the nation—locking in full employment, paying for health care, and stopping the rise of inequality—that can be addressed with progressive tax increases. Progressive tax increases provide less drag on economic recovery than spending cuts or other tax increases, while providing the revenue needed to finance current and future commitments to social insurance and other measures to promote more-equal growth.

The Department of Labor’s new overtime rule, which takes effect on December 1, significantly increases the number of people who qualify for time-and-a-half pay for any hours they work beyond 40 in a week.

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EPI is an independent, nonprofit think tank that researches the impact of economic trends and policies on working people in the United States. EPI’s research helps policymakers, opinion leaders, advocates, journalists, and the public understand the bread-and-butter issues affecting ordinary Americans.